My name is Fran Ansley. I am a retired law professor and I have lived in East Tennessee for forty years. I am here with my fellow Knoxvillian, Alex Guizar, to welcome the “No Papers No Fear” Bus Riders for Justice, and to thank them for coming to help us make Knoxville a safer, more democratic, and more welcoming community.

For months now Alex and I have been working -- along with a broad array of other individuals and organizations -- to try to alert the people of Knox County and our sheriff, J.J. Jones, to the danger of programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities. Programs like these entangle local police, deputies and jailers in the dirty work of enforcing a broken, unjust and hypocritical immigration system. They invite and encourage racial profiling, they undermine the ability of local police to carry out what is supposed to be their primary mission, they tear families apart, and they create a reign of fear for many Latino immigrants and their loved ones.